Like a Roling Stone...How does it feel...

How does it feel to be on your own, with no direction home, like a complete unknown, like a rolling stone?

That has always been on of my all time favorite songs not to mention my favorite Dylan song. Yet I have never really understood the meaning until now. To be on my own, a complete unknown, with no direction home, how does it feel? It feels right, so right for this time in my life.

Sit back my friends because I have a lot to share. Today is the first day of the New Year. The decade is closing in on us and the New Year has begun. Let me tell you how I wrung the New Year in. First, I must set the stage for you. Two days ago I began my day by taking a private meditation class. The class was in this art studio where this woman's father, husband, daughter, and herself all paint. Everything they paint has a deep blue background because everything is about the universe. Inside the pictures are a panorama of color, planets and Hindu Gods. The studio is old and run down so do not think of any gallery you have ever seen. She tells me to focus on her guru on the wall; of the hundreds of paintings it is the only one that is not blue. She teaches me the chant (it wasn't easy) and it is shaker meditation and we begin to shake our bodies eventually like people speaking in tongues. I came down with a bad cold when I arrived in Bali (too much wild play and staying up all night in Umalis my last Bali city) and I have no energy. I have been connected to the Gospel world so the shaking thing doesn't feel that odd. Well we go at it and I tell you when we are done with me lying on the pearl-white tile floor I get up and feel like I have energy to burn, my nose has stopped running and my head was clear. I am still not sure what I think of the whole shaker mediation thing but I'll be dammed if it didn't cure my cold.

I went right from the class to meet a driver at my Villa who was picking up for a class to learn how to make my own Batik. These two men in their early forties greet me. They have terrible teeth; look really disheveled and a bit scary. I jump in the jeep and they tell me the studio is in the Village. I have heard that Village life is really interesting and I think oh cool I will get to experience the Village. My next thought is holy shit these guys could rob me, sake me down or God know what and the fear begins to creep in as we tilt up the mountain road. My friend/boss Darrell told me over and over you are a hundred times safer in Asian and Indonesia because you will be in Buddhist and Hindu countries. O.K. the other part of my begins to take over. They ask me if I love Obama and I say yes. They begin to clap and cheer and start to chat Obama, Obama and tell me how much it means that America elected a man who has the same color skin they do. One of the men tears up. The other man laughs and says Iran loves to say that George Bush hates Muslims...what will they say now, gotcha, and we all laugh. I suddenly understand that these are beautiful gentle spirits and I am fine.

Every single House in the Village is attached to a temple and that makes their life sacred and protected. Attached to the temple is a small compound of dirt floors, roster, chickens, and ducks are at my feet, not to mention numerous dogs and two pigs sleep in a pen near by. I suddenly get how poor these people are. The Batik studio is all open and there are some amazing Batiks all over the place. He is almost done with one of Obama and asks me if I can help him get it to the White House. I said I would do my best. They bring me water and tea and sit me down and look me square in the eye and say this is our home and we want you to be happy and most comfortable. I am. I first learned about Batiks through my Brazilian friends, Roberta and my friend Carol has one that moves me every time I see it. My first step is to pick out my design and pattern. I start to fret about what I want and Widya, the teacher says “Let your story tell itself." I began to trace my images and patterns, and then with a hot wax tool the hard part begins the etching. I did some of it but the really hard parts Widya helped me with, then I painted and mix colors. It all had to dry and Widya and his friend, Atik said they were feeling lazy and asked me if I wanted a tour of the Village and the massive rice fields. We would continue tomorrow for no extra charge. Widya has talked a lot about a community art school he runs with some friends so children can learn art for free, he boasts they have 10 students. I will not go on about the rice fields again but it is a green like I have never seen and the sight of massive fields took my breath away. I have been searching for Batik for one friend and a piece of art for another but nothing seemed right or too expensive. We drive down this dirt road in the pouring rain and enter this dirt little community with a few brick walls with art on them and a wooden table. Because of the rain there is on boy 17-he looks all of 12 working on a painting. They bring me the best ginger-tea I have ever tasted and we sit and laugh and just act silly. At one point we wade through the mud and lay down on the only piece of concrete in the compound. Old woman who look 120 come out to see me and children run up and run away. I know they would like me to buy a piece of art but that is not the reason I am hear. They are so proud of this little art school. I then see what I hope will be the perfect picture for my friend. I offer them $20 and the teacher is thrilled.

The next day I have Tibetan singing bowl mediation where they but several bowls on your body for an hour as you mediate and the bowls sing and vibrate through your body. My friend Carol lovingly bought me a singing bowl the year I turned fifty. Wow, the year I turned fifty it sounds so old. I learned a lot about how to use the bowls properly. Free healing for all when I return.

I am ready to finish my batik vibrating and humming down the street to meet my friends. We get to the studio and I have bought breads, cheeses, olives, fruit and chocolates for heir families for the New Year and they are so appreciative. We now have to finish the stamping patters, dye the fabric, bowl it to get the wax out and then watch it dry. A Dutch man who lives in the compound is making 300 traditional Dutch treats for the village. When he offers me one it is an Italian Zeppita, fried dough with powdered sugar. It is the exact recipe and I am instantly in my Grandmothers kitchen. While my masterpiece is drying I want to go into town a shop that is selling more of Widya's batiks.

My name means Delicious in Ball and when I tell them it also means toilet in America they think that is hilarious. I am now called either Mr. Funny Jon (yes I have killed in Bali as well) or Delicious toilet. It is Odd because I had a fling (yes another one) with a man in Seim Reip, Cambodia and his name was so hard to pronounce that I just started calling him Delicious. I have thought about him a lot and it is odd to now be called delicious. We go to his shop and I find what I hope is the prefect gift for my friend. I then tell him what I am looking for and can't find for Sophia and Jay Linn and he says let me make them for you. I leave tomorrow for an Island in Lombok, think of me as Gilligan. These two men also act as drivers and trekkers for money. I have hired them to pick me up when I get off the boat and need to drive back to the airport for Thailand, my final destination (boo hoo) on this journey.

O.K. kids here are where it really gets good. They invite me to come back later for their New Years Eve Party. I have a few other invitations but they are all big events with bands playing American pop music. I think I have done that and when can I have this experience with these villagers again. After another rain storm it is around 9:00PM and I get a driver to take me to the village. When I arrive their is no one there. The mud is bad because of the rain and in the darker than dark. The dogs, chickens and roosters don't seem as friendly. Widya's wife comes out (she speaks no English) I finally get that everyone is at the Temple. I can't go because I’m not wearing a saronong but she will text him. The party is just six men sitting on mats drinking vodka and jungle juice out of one glass that we pass around. All spirits must be passed and shared you can't get your own glass. They say we must sit and talk about sprits, the Gods and life for the New Year. We proceed to have these deep conversations about "it all." When the New Year approaches we take our vodka, glass and Pringles potato chips and go to say high to the sprits of the rice fields. We sit on the wet road and start to sing American songs. This is how they have all learned English. I tell them I have all the music they love and I will send them mixes. My friend turns to me and says. Can my first song be an old song that I love so much, I have studied all the words, a song about Leaving on a Jet Plane. If you are following the blog I tell you I just fell on the road, shouting to the midnight green of the field this can't be possible. When I tell them the story of the song that my lover Jim new Mary Travis of Peter, Paul and Mary and that she wrote the song and I have hung out with her. They howl with laughter and tell me the Gods love me because they play with me. Indeed they do I say. More fiends come and we are singing American Pie, Like a Virgin, Hotel California and other American songs. Because I know them the keep asking me to sing and think I have a nice voice. I told them I have an entire cabaret act in my head that I have been doing for decades and to sit back. Knowing all to well it would be the last time a group of people would ask me to sing. We then see a hug snake slithering up the center of the wet road. This is good luck they say and we follow it until it goes back in the river. I have to tell you the sight of this snake was awe inspiring.

As we walk back they tell me Dolly Parton is their number one. I proceed to tell them every funny Dolly story I know, I glide into Sophie Tucker jokes, into Tallulah Bankhead jokes, just the sound of their raucous laughter fills my heart. When they take me back to my hotel in the wee hours they thank me for my company and say “Mr. Delicious, you worry too much” and start to sing Don't Worry be Happy and drive away, laughing and shouting friend for life. When I reach the desk to get my key the clerk asks me how I am. “I am…I am...delicious” I say and go off to bed.

Happy New Year one and all, let's not worry, let's be happy. xoxo